Thursday, June 1, was our sixth day of walking. Sorry, I am so slow in catching up on my blogs. We have been really tired in the evenings.

We might almost say we are getting in shape. While we are tired every night, our muscles aren’t aching, or at least not as much as in the first few days. Thursday morning, we left our wonderful room at Crookabeck Farm early in order to beat the heat. The trail started uphill immediately.

Today’s miles: 11.43. Miles to date: 60.13. Miles remaining: 129.87

We had lots of climbing ahead of us today as we sought the highest point of our entire walk. Kidsty Pike stands at 2600 feet and we were hoping to reach it before it got too warm. Fortunately, it turned out to be a cloudy day and we were nice and cool all the way. 

With all the sunshine England has been enjoying, things have been growing rapidly. We started our walk a week ago and the Foxgloves were not yet in bloom and the bracken (ferns) were about 1 foot tall. Now, a week later, the Foxgloves are blooming abundantly and the bracken has grown another foot. These are some beautiful Foxgloves that we encountered at the start of our hike this morning.

This is our last day to enjoy the fells of the Lakes District as we leave them behind and begin to travel much flatter land in the days to follow. We have so enjoyed valleys such as these that greeted us as we climbed up higher this morning.

Let me introduce our Sheep of the Day. This fellow is, I believe, a Swaledale breed. He is quite proud of his horns and loves to pose for pictures. He had set a tip jar next to the trail and was asking 50 pence per picture. What a handsome fellow.

Ever since we started planning this trip and watching videos that other Coast to Coast walkers had posted, I have been enchanted by a lake called Angle Tarn. I think it is so beautiful. Today, I got to see it in person. It is even better than in the videos. Here are a number of pictures of Angle Tarn.

The landscape is beginning to change as we head east and out of the Lakes District. This is a fascinating view of a hillside across the valley.

I love this Coast to Coast sign. Perhaps this was a hiker who was not carrying his 10 Essentials or not enough water. Our goal is to not end up like this hiker.

The weather was cooler and we are bundled up today…but still sweating from the climb.

This little peak ahead of us is Kidsty Pike and is our high point for today, and indeed, for the entire hike. It measures 2600’ high. There were some navigation challenges along the way. There is a sharp left turn that a lot of people miss. If you miss the turn, you follow another well-established trail, but the incorrect one for the Coast to Coast. You end up climbing another steep hill unless you rapidly realize your mistake. Between our gps maps on our phone and our paper maps we were right on top of it and made the correct turns. But it did take a lot of navigation stops to make sure we knew where we were going.

It was a long climb, but we made it! The views were spectacular and we talked to lots of people on top. We even met another two people from Missouri and lots of great English folks. Smiles all around.

The climb was complete, but there were still many miles left in our day. And they were not necessarily easy miles. First, we had a very steep and difficult descent from Kidsty PIke to Haweswater, a big reservoir. Here we are starting down.

There’s the reservoir we are heading down to. You can tell it is pretty steep.

Yes, this is actually a trail. Hard to tell.

Once we got down there were pretty little brooks. But we still have a four mile walk to the end of the lake. Wow, that’s a trek.

We are nearing the end of the Lakes District National Park when we see our first little sign for Wainwright’s Coast to Coast path. They will be much more prevalent in the rest of the walk.

Whew! We made it. We are at the end of our day and waiting for the taxi which will take us to our night’s lodging. A long, but good, day.

God bless,
Coe